History
In 1967, colour television was gradually being introduced to British audiences on the BBC’s recently launched second channel. David Attenborough, at that time the Controller of BBC Two, was seeking to expand the range of colour programmes on the fledgling channel. Formerly head of the BBC’s Travel and Exploration Unit in London, he realised that many of its telecine films had been shot in colour. Attenborough commissioned The World About Us, a documentary series with a broad remit of geography, anthropology and natural history subjects. It was described by Barry Paine, a producer and narrator of many of the early programmes, as "a series designed to sell colour television sets". It was no accident that early episodes featured some of the most vibrant colours in the natural world. The first programme was a film by the French vulcanologist Haroun Tazieff, called simply "Volcano". It was broadcast on Sunday 3 December 1967, which also marked the first full evening of colour television in Britain. Another early episode featured the brilliantly-coloured scarlet ibis.
Due to the difficulty in sourcing colour films, production duties were initially shared between the Travel and Exploration Unit in London and the Natural History Unit in Bristol. Over time, the London contribution dried up and the focus became exclusively on natural history. To reflect this, the series title was altered to The Natural World in 1983 and then shortened to its current form in 2003. The first episode under the new title was “Save the Panda”, broadcast on 30 October 1983. In September 2008 the BBC announced that the series had been re-commissioned for a further three years.
I have no doubt that Natural World is not only the doyen and founding member of the 50-minute natural history genre but is still the one with the best and most distinguished record.
— David Attenborough
Read more about this topic: Natural World (TV Series)
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